


fucking pokego

by pricklyteeth



Series: pokego au [1]
Category: EXO (Band), SHINee
Genre: Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 01:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10452228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pricklyteeth/pseuds/pricklyteeth
Summary: Taemin gets into shenanigans. He blames pokemon go.





	

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Taemin swore, sucking on his bleeding thumb. He was hopping a barbed (pretty sparsely, to be honest) wire fence that enclosed a private beachfront property, and his hand snagged because he was being careless. A few battle scars here and there were bound to happen, he reasons. More to tell Jongin and Jonghyun about tomorrow. 

He’d initially texted them about coming with, but Jongin never replied and Jjong said he’d be down if the last time wasn’t a fucking disaster. He snorted, wiping his hand on his jeans, ripped and worn from biking and skating mishaps over the years. He really needed to make some friends who weren’t so chickenshit. “Team Valor, my fucking asshole,” he muttered, jumping down the rest of the way, kicking up some sand around the brush he landed in.

As if on cue, his phone lit up, vibrating in his pocket where he had just tucked it so his hands would be free. ‘Asshole #1’ glowed in bright blue, the digitized font over a clean black background (he let someone mod his phone once when he was gaming at Jjong’s, and he’s never figured out how to change it back) making the tacky nickname seem out of place. Swiping right, he answered, smile in his voice,”Hey Assface, long time no talk!”

Putting Jongin on speaker and lowering the volume significantly (he really didn’t want to get caught trespassing), he switched over to the pokemon go app to see what pokemon was nearby, now that he’d gotten over. 

“Dude, I just got your text, I was sleeping.” Jongin answered like the dead, his normally deep and mumbly-slurred manner of speaking sounding more throaty and hoarse. He could hear the slow blinks in his voice as he went on,

”Did you leave already?” Taemin snorted, thumbing through the app.

“Yeah dude, ages ago!” he was whisper-yelling, something they were accustomed to, having grown up staying over at each other’s houses, excited from gaming late into the night, but also cognizant of easily disturbed and angry parentals. 

“Lit, I took my bike down to the beach, and there are like 30 plebes out there on the fucking boardwalk.” Jongin snickered.

“I believe it dude.”

Taemin continued, not done, “I’ve already caught a horsea and a squirtle and I just got this gnarly cut on my thumb from some barbed wire. You’re missing all the action.”

“Dude, shut up, you did Not catch a squirtle.”

“You want me to send a screenshot?” Taemin finished leveling up his jigglypuff before flipping back to the rest of his pokemon, tapping squirtle, screenshotting, and sending, smiling when he hears Jongin whine,

“Dude no fucking fair! Why is it whenever you’re out by yourself you get all the good shit?”

“It’s a gift. Now hang up, there’s a seel nearby and it’s calling my name.”

“Okay dude, let me know when you get back so I don’t wake up wondering if you got kidnapped or arrested for trespassing.”

“Yeah, yeah, bye, love you mom.” Taemin hangs up before Jongin can respond, almost chucking his phone because the seel got away. He blames Jongin and his shitty luck.

It’s already past 1 am, and he really has to catch something worth the gash on his thumb, so he heads out toward the pier. He actually sort of knows the family, since he’s dogsat for them like, twice, which is why he knows about their cute little section of beach in the first place, but he’s not close enough to casually drop by in the dead of night, whether or not rare water pokemon are at stake.

He huffs, catching the fifth magicarp of the night, kicking absently at one of the many raised boards on the uneven platform of the pier when he hears some muttering, indistinguishable at first, but he definitely hears,”The things I do for pokego” in there somewhere. The moon is pretty bright out, and the pier is empty, from what Taemin can tell, so he’s wondering if he’s hearing voices again when the boards beneath him wobble.

He grips his phone, his knuckles turning white. Just as he accepts his fate, death-by-haunted-pier, he hears a very human whine coming from …beneath? him. Interest piqued, he ducks under the railings and peers underneath the platform coming nearly eye-to-eye with a floppy haired dude with a strange and slightly terrified smile on his face.

“Hey?”

“Hey..”

The dude is gripping one of the support beams underneath the pier, precariously with one leg and one arm, the other arm outstretched beneath him, holding his phone out towards the water. Taemin has never met someone more reckless than he is, and he thinks for a moment, that he is in love.

He puts a hand over his chest to calm his aromantic heart, his head cocking to the side. He’s sure he looks all kinds of interesting upside down, with his long blonde bangs sticking out every which way, but this is a special occasion. Plus, he’s reminded of the scene in The Little Vampire when Rudolph and Tony first meet. His brain helps him with a little echolalie, and he finds himself quoting,”What clan are you from, brother?”

The Dude looks unsure of himself as he responds, “Team Mystic?”

He tries to flap, but one of his arms is pinned underneath him, and the other is supporting him, so his body kind of just wiggles on the pier.

“Dude! Same!” The Dude looks kind of terrified for a moment, and Taemin realizes belatedly that his wiggling was probably shaking the supporting beam he was holding on to.

He smiles and grimaces at the same time. “Sorry, dude.”

The Dude also kind of smile-grimaces,”Hey, can you not call me dude? I don’t really like masc vocatives for” they hesitate, “for gender reasons.”

Taemin’s arm pushes out from beneath him to flap frantically,”No-no! I- Augh, I use dude in a gender-neutral way!” He has a couple nonbinary friends, and he really doesn’t want to be that dude. “I’m sorry, um, what’s your name, what are your pronouns?”

“Jinki,” he smiles, and Taemin thinks it’s kind of the most radiant fucking thing he’s ever seen in his life. “And I go by he, she, and they pronouns.”

Taemin nods a little frantically, and it’s only then that he realizes how strangely positioned they both are, a crick in his neck starting to make him feel sore.

“Hey, I don’t want to like, seem pushy or something? But wouldn’t this be easier if we were on top of the pier?”

Jinki’s eyes snap back to his phone and they frown, tapping at the lit screen. “I found this lapras, and it keeps rejecting me.” She sounds kind of dejected, flicking their bangs out of her eyes.

“NO FUCKING WAY?” Taemin claps a hand over his mouth because? Like? A Lapras?

“Let me just try one more time…”

From the corner of his eye, Taemin spots light and movement, and his whole body tenses and before he knows it he’s crashing into the water. He dives back under the surface and moves underneath the pier when the light follows him, hearing a bark when he resurfaces, and that’s definitely Kibum’s voice he hears.

“No, yeah I thought I heard something, but I think it’s just the waves. Isn’t that right, Comme des?”

Taemin holds his breath, looking up at Jinki, who looks like he’s contemplating something before scooting forward on the support beam to stick their phone on the dock, behind the wooden railing, before dropping into the water as well, only she timed herself with the wave crashing. Taemin shakes his head. Jinki is really something else.

They stay quiet, moving toward the shallow water, listening to Kibum walk around on the pier and talk on the phone. Taemin realizes belatedly that his phone is probably completely waterlogged, and resists the urge to smack his own face. 

“Yeah, mom has been really awful lately. I wish you were here, halmeoni.” Kibum pauses, laughing. Taemin doesn’t remember ever hearing Kibum sound so soft and tender, he knows he’s been through a lot, but normally there’s a barrier he feels is absent. He suddenly wishes he was closer to Kibum, thinking of him as an acquaintance from church who comes from a rich family seems like a pretty ill-fitting description at this point, regardless of the truths that exist in the statement.

“No, the kids haven’t been giving me trouble at school, I’m fine,” Kibum sighs, his voice carrying loudly over the quiet balmy night. He settles down by the post that Jinki left his phone behind and Taemin looks over, wide-eyed as Jinki mouths ‘fuck’. Luckily Kibum doesn’t seem to have noticed, patting and mumbling a quiet ‘cmere’ to Comme des. He drops a pebble into the ocean, which startles Taemin. Jinki grips him by the elbows, startled by his startle reaction, before sheepishly letting go, nervously tucking their bangs behind their ear, mouthing ‘sorry’. Taemin thinks Jinki is beautiful.

“It’s been a long time since then anyway, halmeoni.” Taemin pulls at his lip, sighing softly as he realizes that he’s risked getting caught trespassing, is currently completely soaked, foot caught in a mess of seaweed, thumb probably infected at this point, with a dead phone at fuckall o’clock in the morning because he decided that rare pokemon was worth it. He flips off the underside of the dock, and Jinki silently snickers, thinking it’s directed at Kibum.

He shakes his head, mouthing ‘Pokemon go’. Jinki nods sagely.

Kibum sits up then, sounding a little frustrated. “I don’t really want to talk about him, halmeoni.” He’s making his way off the pier, the light coming back on. “It’s late, have a good dinner.” Taemin frowns, chewing on a knuckle. There’s that barrier again, he thinks. But then Kibum disappears back into the house, and they can breathe again.

Climbing onto the beach, obscured from the house by the pier, Taemin shakes out his hair and waterlogged clothing, sadly picking his phone out of his pocket. Jinki pats his arm in a strange but comforting gesture before sitting down, Taemin following after.

“How’d you end up under there anyway?”

Jinki laughs. “I was having some really good luck tonight on the connected public beach area, and I saw the fence. You know how it is.”

Taemin shakes his head up at the sky. “Fucking Pokemon Go.”

Jinki laughs again, and Taemin’s toes curl in his soggy skate shoes, and he looks down at the sand. Jinki has a really pretty laugh. He gets nudged in the side, and he looks up, seeing something glittery and mischievous in Jinki’s eyes. “Hey, at least we met, and you have a pretty wild ass story to tell.”

Taemin finds himself smiling. “True..” he frowns, “Still, that lapras got away..” At this, Jinki’s eyes light up, sticking a finger out and peeking over the pier before running over to the post where he left his phone. Taemin doesn’t know why they think he has anywhere to go, but he stays put obediently. He can see her wiggle before they come back over, and he’s laughing because they are doing the Irish Dancing Jig as they make their way back.

He shows Taemin the screen and while he should have guessed from the wiggling and the dancing, he still can’t believe that Jinki actually caught the fucking lapras. It’s at hella CP and glowing. The lapras is fucking glowing and beautiful. He’s holding the phone with both hands, squinting at it, before looking up at Jinki, solemnly gesturing for him to come closer.

Jinki bends down, face nearly level with Taemin’s. Taemin reaches out, holding their face in his hands, thumbs smoothing over the planes of their cheeks before just as solemnly whispering, “you are magic.”

And then Jinki pecks his lips? And then he is smiling? And radiant? And Taemin is confused? But Jinki is just smiling this wonderfully self indulgent smile and says, “I know,” before hauling Taemin up and off the sand, and he’s talking about In N’ Out? And Taemin has barely dried at all but In N’ Out sounds fucking bomb, and Jinki is magic, and he has so much to tell Jongin tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> #this is #um #idk what the fuck this is #the writing style is all sticky n choppy bc i kind of was in my taem's head #ontae #they're both nd and nb but taem doesnt know hes an enbab yet n so he does a lot of making it feel like hes not trans bc he feels like he's #overstepping #i have so many aus but this one happened to me today?? #oh n both of them are aroace n jinki kisses ppl in a fren way but also they end up bein qps . they are in qp lov #jongin n jjong are also in qp lov but taem doesn know bc its hard for him to tell when its not him #why do i have so many things going on in this au already #i also have kibu plans #rip #also taem is autistic . n so is jinki n so is jjong n jongin n kibum #i dont make the rules bye #also upon rereading for the ninetieth time it sounded like i meant jongin was team valor bc taem was mocking team valor and then jongin #called him but i assure u jongin is team instinct lol #jjong is team valor bc she identifies w n has a cartoon squish on candela who is a boss ass lesbian #jjong also has like weird competitive feelies when it comes to virtual reality and video games #n is slightly snooty ab team valor bc she identifies w her team so much but also jongtaekai are best bes bes frens n they are all on diff #teams n like w all their video games gently headbutt each other #not so gently on most accounts except fr jongin to jonghyun but thats bc they r qps n he has the softest spot for jonghyun #not that jongin isnt like the floatiest softest nerdyloserbaby #in like general but he goodnaturedly goes hard bc taem at least expects him to #I STILL HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS AB THIS AU FUCK #oh also lol i never specified ever but also im not bein subtle but this fic is based in socal lol
> 
> lmao i just copied my tags pls dont hate me


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